My main support pick is Taric, and while I have not had much trouble with him so far, I wonder how good of a pick he is in high level play.
It is not common to see Taric picked in pro-level games, most of the pro supports seem to go for Soraka, Janna or Sona instead.
As such, what is the advantage those champions have over Taric?
It's just that Taric does nothing special. If you want to play aggressive (utilize the stun) you can go for Leona or Alistar or even Blitzcrank. If you want to utilize the Armor and the Heal, go for Soraka or Janna. If you want to utilize a mix of these things... get Sona!
For everything that Taric does, there is someone who does it better. Still, if you like the champion, you can play him for sure and you will have a lot of success with him. While you could still see some people using Taric a few patches ago, I fairly doubt you will see this as frequently after Sona got buffed again.
Like someone before mentioned Taric support is viable in higher levels of plays with burst AD champions like Corki, Graves or Ezreal.
This is not only due to the fact that you can stun the enemy, allowing all the burst from your AD to land easily and mostly uncontested, but you also have the ability to shred their armor, allowing more damage to come out from your carry's burst and adding some damage yourself to said burst.
This is a great combo with Corki's armor shred from his Gatling Gun.
The meta changed significantly after this question was asked.
For the season 4 meta:
You want a support with:
Lets see what Taric has: - No range harass. - Long cooldown, high mana heal to himself and ally. - Armor buff to himself and allies. - Long cd stun, with insignificant damage. - Not bad one time burst with really high cooldown. - Damage buff to allies.
So if we compare these, Sona>Janna>Taric>Soraka
http://www.lolking.net/champions/
Sort by popularity to see which supports are most played.
Sort by winrate to see which support are most viable. The winrate backsup this statement.
I personally love taric for his versatility, but mostly he's a pick for bursty ADs like Ez, Corki or Graves. Unlike Leona or Blitz, if things go wrong, Taric is still a good support for a passive lane.
Janna and Sona have ultimates that can turn the tide of a teamfight, Soraka has burst heal. As Taric you... you are just there. It's definetely tier 1 suport in lane, but in teamfights he does less than other supports. This isn't to say that Taric is useless, though.
I think Taric is a good support only in early game because of that stun. I personally like playing as vayne with taric to get a double stun and do lots of damage but it is true in teamfights he doesn't do much
I would prefer to play Taric because of its versatility. Traic is still consider to be a good support because of his passive and his stun. His skills allow him to sustain with WQ.
The majority of people here are answering based on opinion as far as i can see. (Some have some good comparisons and explain things) But if you strictly want to know viability, I'd say some number crunching is the way to determine best. I use lolking.net charts. You can choose a chart by 'Highest Win Rate' and 'Lowest Win Rate' (cant remember the exact terminology). From here you can then filter by the tier you want. It will give you a short chart of the highest/lowest win rates in tier (you can select diamond if you want high level) and if that isn't even you can also choose to expand the chart more. If he doesn't appear on any chart or he is in the higher win rate chart, then he is either on par or better. If he's on the lower win rate chart... then I'd say it's safe to assume he's really not that viable since he's continually losing for players.
You can follow this same process for about any champion.
He seems more of a jack of all trades champion. He does things several other champions do, just not as well. He has a good single target stun. Other champions have more stuns (Leona) and others can stun multiple targets (annie, sona, alistar). He has a decent heal. Soraka has a stronger single target heal and an amazing team heal. Sona has a constant heal she can spam which is good in lane. Alistar has a slight heal. He has decent burst in lane. Stun + shatter. Leona has good burst with her abils. So does annie/zyra. He's tanky, but leona and alistar naturally are even more tanky.
His strength is that he is a very versatile champion. His weakness is that everything he does, someone else does better.
His heal is outstanding so you should get 30%-40% cdr and mana regen first. After mid-game, you can stay in lane until the game is over. His burst is strong enough to destroy a carry alone.
He is useful if you know what to do with him, but he is somewhat weak in the early game. This early weakness is why you don't see him too much. Everyone nowadays wants those fast wins. Success in League comes with patience though and Taric shines if you give him some time.
